


Ghostly Touch

by StormDriver



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Touch-Starved, miqo'te warrior of light - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25485412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDriver/pseuds/StormDriver
Summary: A century of feeling nothing could leave someone wanting.A short piece that I've been wanting to get out for a while. I finally got it finished after I read a neat thread on Twitter about Ardbert being touch-starved.
Relationships: Ardbert & Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Ardbert/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	Ghostly Touch

**Author's Note:**

> this reads like smut, but it's not, i swear

Yet another long day of fighting Sin Eaters. Their numbers had once again spiked following the raid on the Crystarium and the rest of Lakeland besides. A sudden growth not too difficult to tie to the man who claimed kinship with the wretched beasts.

As night descended on the wary Crystarium and all of its people dreaded the nightmares of Sin Eater attacks, one such character was running through the markets, collecting supplies as if she were planning for an adventure. In these trying times, she received questions about her purchases, like if she truly was going to leave the safety of the Crystal Tower to sate her adventurer’s curiosity. She did not have many truthful answers to give, and simply nodded along and gave a fake smile. 

She’d taken a map of Norvrandt, several handfuls of dark matter, a quill and inkwell, recently cooked bread in a basket, and a bottle filled with rum from the markets. And as she bolted away towards the Pendants, many of the merchants watched her go with still-lingering questions for her true prerogative. 

The door to the room banged open and shut, and the contents in her arms spilled onto the table. With careful hands, the Warrior of Darkness placed a solid object on each corner of the map, preventing it from furling back up. She tore a piece of bread off the freshly baked loaf with one of her gauntlets and bit into half of it. The other hand took the bottle and popped the cork off the top, tipping the inebriating contents into her mouth. Her eyes did not drift from the paper on her map.

Soon enough, she was scribbling circles and words, drawings lines and symbols across Norvrandt. Jotting down small comments here and there, drawing fanciful little doodles near Eulmore and Rak’tika. She tapped the feather against her jaw as she took another sip of the bottle.

She was not alone in her room. Having grown used to his presence after living alongside him for nearly a month, Ardbert’s sudden appearances were becoming common and did not scare her anymore. She saw his ghostly image pace from the left side of her vision. His arms stuck behind his back as he peered at the map in front of her.

“Awful lot of theorycrafting you’ve done, and at the cost of a perfectly good map,” he mumbled.

The quill drew another line connecting Lakeland and Eulmore. “Urianger said as much: this was caused by Vauthry.”

“I’m not denying that.”

Another line between Rak’tika, and Eulmore. She sighed and crossed her arms, staring down at all the scribbles she’d made. “The question is how he managed to command the Sin Eater’s and at so swift a pace.”

“Many of them weren’t native to Lakeland, I would’ve recognized it.”

“Yes. They came from all over Norvrandt.”

“That his command over them can reach from the isles of Kholusia to the mountains in Il Mheg,” Ardbert shook his head. “It’s baffling.”

The Warrior of Darkness sighed. She placed the quill on the table and grabbed one of the stools, pulling it beneath her. She sat down and huffed, hand reaching for the bottle on the table.”

Ardbert watched her silver gauntlet drift towards the drink, “Y’know, you shouldn’t be having so much of that.”

The miqo’te’s ears bounced at his statement and she met his eyes. “It’s to take the edge off,” Raine mumbled. She pulled the bottle off the surface and tipped it, swallowing a few more droplets of the sweet rum.

“You’ll be stumbling and falling down stairs in the morning if you keep that up.”

She looked back at her newly found roommate, eyes half-closed and a frown appearing as she pulled the body away from her lips. “I’m not sleeping anyways.”

He winced and blinked twice. “Why not? You’ve a living, breathing body. You need the rest if you want to live to fight another day.”

Raine turned back to the map and picked up the quill with a half-hearted motion. “I can’t seem to fall asleep.” She scribbled another comment near Amh Areng. “So I figure that I’ll study the Sin Eaters… get this over with faster.” She kept on scribbling. 

“If you don’t get some kind of rest, then you’ll have more to worry about!” He scolded, pressing a hand on the table and leaning down to meet her eyes. “And then what’ll Norvrandt do without you to help it?”

She sighed and stole another piece of bread, reaching past Ardbert as she did so. She quickly ate it and swallowed.

The ghost huffed and leaned closer. “Is this about the light inside you? From the Wardens? The Exarch might have something to cure it.”

Raine kept drawing aimlessly on the map, her iridescent eyes unflinching from the parchment. 

“If you don’t rest then-” He stumbled on his words, watching her lift her hand again. Her left holding the quill, her right reaching again for the bottle.

As Raine pulled the glass close and ignored her friend’s concerns, she opened her mouth to meet the bottle. Normally the glass would feel cold on her lips. But everything feels cold these days. 

Before she could taste the rum again, something grabbed onto her wrist and stopped her motion. Her eyes popped open and she looked at her right arm. A brightly-lit hand had grabbed her wrist, stopping her drunken pursuit. She turned her head further to the right and was met with a disappointed, yet at the same time, concerned look from Ardbert.

“You don’t drink often, and I can understand why you are now.” His grip was still tight on her arm. “But this is just a temporary solution. Please, try to lay down and sleep.” 

She didn’t stop staring, eyes shifting from his hand actually  _ touching  _ her arm and his anxious face. Raine never expected him to try touching her, even if it was something as harmless as a shoulder tap. And if he ever had, she certainly didn’t expect his grip to feel like ice. 

Ardbert caught onto her surprise and glanced down at his own hand. He flinched back, pulling his hand away as fast as he’d grabbed her arm. The feeling was bizarre. It was a distant feeling, something that itched at memories of how proper armor and fabric was supposed to feel. Back when he had a living body and friends who slept around the campfires with him. 

Raine kept staring, the skin beneath her gauntlets growing brighter as she clutched the bottle in her hands tightly. She blinked once and said, “You actually touched something.”

He stared at his palm and flexed his fingers. “I...did.”

Long had he accepted that he was without a physical form, without a person to talk to or a being that could see him. How many times before had he stumbled through a person trying to push them out of the way of a Sin Eater’s tempering swipe and finding no purchase in his arms. How long ago did he give up screaming at survivors to run the other way because there were only more Sin Eaters down the road that they chose. When exactly did he realize he couldn’t feel his own skin anymore, and gave up on trying to keep a heroic appearance.

“You didn’t tell me you could do that,” Raine looked back up and met his eyes again.

“I had no idea I could.”

A feeling he never quite realized he missed. Buried in ancient memories that he had once lost to a darkness that drowned him. Finally reclaimed, yet not enough was given back to him yet. No body to call his own. No claim to knowing how the warmth of the sun felt. How soft a bed would feel if he could sleep on one.

Yet he had felt the strangest things just now. No, strange was not the right word. They were normal feelings. The feeling of cool metal, smooth and polished, yet scratched from use and combat. Cloth protecting a fragile limb beneath all that steel, to keep her skin warm and body unbattered from the weight of her armor. And something...cold.

Raine blew air into her face and it shoved some black strands out of her eyes. “Alright, well,” she placed the bottle back on the table. “Whatever you did, you’ve made me cold enough to convince me I need to bundle up more. So congratulations on your easy victory.” She stood up and stole another piece of bread, then turned towards the bed in the corner of the room.

Her armor clanked as she moved, yet another familiar sound from when he was alive. When he could feel his armor’s weight shift and move on his body when he walked. The sword and shield hanging off her waist and back bumped her armor as she moved, scraping as it did so. 

How much had he missed this? To think he might’ve missed the days when he would take off his armor and find bruised skin beneath. To think he missed feeling pain. Feeling anything at all.

Before Raine could get far enough, something once again grabbed her wrist. Her left one, this time. The girl nearly jumped and turned on a dime, staring wide-eyed at the ghost that had somehow managed to grab her limb.

“Wait, please,” he was staring at the ground, but Raine could see his furrowed brows and his eyes twitching as he looked at the tiles beneath them. “I...I haven’t felt anything like this in a century.”

One of her brows rose and she tilted her head. “Ah…” was the only noise that escaped her mouth.

“I almost can’t remember how this feels. How armor is supposed to feel, and what another person’s touch is.”

He kept staring at the floor, either in embarrassment or shame. 

“I miss it. I miss it dearly.”

Raine’s shoulders drooped. Her tail started to scrape the floor.

Ardbert shook his head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask. This whole arrangement is already too much, and it’d be selfish of me to-”

With no warning, she stepped forward. Her boots clacked the tiles and armor rustled as she moved her arms around Ardbert’s ghostly frame. Her gauntlets wrapped beneath his arms and hands fell over his back. Her face rested over one of his shoulders and she bumped his boots with her own trying to get close. 

Ardbert felt overwhelmed almost immediately. Such familiar memories fluttered to the surface of his mind: a time long ago in his youth of his mother giving him a hug. A close friend from childhood who needed a hug after their dog had passed away. A lonely night in Rak’tika that ended with Renda-Rae shedding tears in his embrace. 

This felt the same. Raine’s body was warm to the touch. If he listened closely, he could hear the rhythm of her breathing, and even quieter, the sound of her heartbeat. He could feel her fingers pulling on his shoulders to get closer. He felt her legs bump his and she approached. Her cat-like ears flicking as they brushed against the side of his head. 

Slowly, his arms wrapped over her body as well. He wasn’t much taller than she, and he leaned into her hug a little more. His head tilted down and he took a breath. He didn’t need to breathe. But he felt the cold air fill his lungs as he did. Or at least, he had the distant memory of it.

Raine took a deeper breath,” Is this what you needed?” She still leaned against his lack-thereof-a-body. Straining to listen for a heartbeat that wasn’t there. 

“Y-yes, it was,” he stammered out. 

Raine smiled and pat his armor twice with her hand. Then started to pull away.

His arms tightened again, and he pressed his head into her shoulder. “No-”

She stopped moving.

Ardbert winced and muttered, “Not yet, please.” 

Raine was still for a few seconds, seconds which did feel like an eternity. He wanted to apologize and say she didn’t have to do this for him, proclaim his own selfish desires out loud and leave her alone for as long as she needed.

But she did not give him the chance. She fell back against him, her head on his chestplate. She closed her eyes and mumbled out, “Tell me when you’re ready then.”

Ardbert blinked twice, his mouth hanging open. The hug tightened again, until he was sure he could hear Raine’s slow and steady heartbeat against his chest. He sucked in another breath and croaked out two words:

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the twitter thread for anyone interested ;3 https://twitter.com/runecestershire/status/1286605442207154177


End file.
